People often engage in communication sessions with other people in conference sessions. For instance, users may participate in group text messaging sessions, or instant messaging sessions. As another example, users may participate in conference calls that include audio or video and audio communications using phones such as cellular phones or computers. In other circumstances, a user may have a communication session that involves only communicating with one other person in a phone call or via text messaging or via a video/audio communication connection using cellular phones or computers. The connections between the users may be established over one or more networks. One example of a combined video and audio communication is a face time connection using iPhone cellular phones made by Apple. Another example of such a communication is a video conference utilizing a camera connected to a computer having a network connection with at least one other communication session participant.
A user may participate in a communication session with one or more other people via their different communication devices. In some circumstances, a user may use a non-mobile device, such as a desktop computer or desktop phone, to participate in such a session. While the session is in progress, something may occur that requires the user to move to a new location. Traditionally, that user would have to end his or her participation in that session using the desktop computer and use another device to rejoin the session. For instance, if the communication session was a conference call, the user would have to rejoin the communication session using a different device, such as a mobile phone to continue to participate in the communication session.
The leaving or reentering of the session is typically undesirable as it creates a delay in the ongoing communication session and can make other participants wait for the user to rejoin the session. In some circumstances, such an occurrence may require all the users to terminate their involvement in the session and then reinitiate a new session to accommodate the needs of that one user.
Additionally, joining with a different device may expose a different contact address to the conference participants. For example, a user disconnecting from a wired phone and rejoining a conference with a cell phone could expose both his wired phone number and cell phone number to the participants. If one of the conference participants subsequently needs to contact this user, he or she may not know which phone number to use.
A new device or system is needed to permit a user to control how a user may participate in a communication session. Preferably, the new device or system permits a user to utilize a service that allows the user to more easily change the device used to participate and communicate in a communication session without requiring that user to terminate his or her involvement in an ongoing communication session or rejoin that session using another device and at the same time automatically expose a single contact address to his communication peers independently of the device being used.